I recently read an article on the Talk Origins "news group" claiming to refute most young earth arguments I know of. I am a Creationist myself but, I don't have the education to understand all of the science. I suspect the article is full of untruths from I can understand but I don't know.Any thoughts?young earth arguments

With all due respect willis there are rather too many topics, to just pick one at random. I mean suppose it was not in a subject you are familiar with, (guessing - the earths magnetic field), then the explanation from creation or evolution will be difficult to follow.

What is your area of interest in science, or better, follow one of the existing arguments currently running and just join in.

With all due respect willis there are rather too many topics, to just pick one at random. I mean suppose it was not in a subject you are familiar with, (guessing - the earths magnetic field), then the explanation from creation or evolution will be difficult to follow.

What is your area of interest in science, or better, follow one of the existing arguments currently running and just join in.

I understand thanks for your input. However, please humor me for minute. What if I asked about a specific one of these 'refutes'?Say, radiocarbon dating?

Like any article in talk origins the argument from the creationist perspective is first repeated, then, the response in lay terms, often interspaced with links to the source material for more in depth reading.

I must admit that I am not a fan of the talk origin news group, and prefer only to use the source data/links contained in their archive.

Don't worry, I don't think many at talkorigins have the education either...

Terry

If you (or anyone else) want to, please point out some of the flaws in the talkorigins.org article from a creationist point of view. I myself think they make quite a good case and I am curious as to what creationists think of this article.

Hello,I found one argument I found to be questionable. Dave Matson attacks the saltiness of the oceans being a proof for a young earth he says: "Dr. h*vind is assuming that salt cannot be removed from the oceans. The more sophisticated creationists, such as Melvin Cook, know better than to make that assumption. Here's what Cook had to say" Then he cites [Cook, 1966, p.73] Who says this cannot be used to prove the age of the earth either way.

"Thus, salt is being removed from the oceans as quickly as it is being added by the world's rivers. Consequently, no age can be calculated, save a minimum age based upon an assumption of initial salt content. There is no comfort here for the young-earth creationist."

Is it being removed as quickly as it is being added? Here is what AIG had to say:"However, the rate of all of this sodium output is far less than the input. Austin and Humphreys calculated that about 122 million tonnes of sodium leaves the sea every year. The maximum possible rate in the past, even if the most generous assumptions are granted to evolutionists, is 206 million tonnes/year."

"Granting the most generous assumptions to evolutionists, Austin and Humphreys calculated that the ocean must be less than 62 million years old. ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s important to stress that this is not the actual age, but a maximum age. That is, this evidence is consistent with any age up to 62 million years, including the biblical age of about 6,000 years.

The Austin and Humphreys calculation assumes the lowest plausible input rates and fastest plausible output rates. Another assumption is that there was no dissolved salt to start with. If we assume more realistic conditions in the past, the calculated maximum age is much less."AIG

I'm not sure what the point is. If you have something that you believe in, that they are causing you trouble with, then spend some time at AIG or ICR, and you can probably find answers to your questions. You can ask about here if you wish, but I'm not interested in anything that is said there. What I have read there is generally tripe, and that's all I can say about it.

If you (or anyone else) want to, please point out some of the flaws in the talkorigins.org article from a creationist point of view. I myself think they make quite a good case and I am curious as to what creationists think of this article.

I'm not sure what the point is. If you have something that you believe in, that they are causing you trouble with, then spend some time at AIG or ICR, and you can probably find answers to your questions. You can ask about here if you wish, but I'm not interested in anything that is said there. What I have read there is generally tripe, and that's all I can say about it.

Terry

I have been doing a lot of my own research on the topic I just wanted to hear what other young earthers had to say about it. What exactly are you interested in that is related to a young earth?

Hello,I found one argument I found to be questionable. Dave Matson attacks the saltiness of the oceans being a proof for a young earth he says: "Dr. h*vind is assuming that salt cannot be removed from the oceans. The more sophisticated creationists, such as Melvin Cook, know better than to make that assumption. Here's what Cook had to say" Then he cites [Cook, 1966, p.73] Who says this cannot be used to prove the age of the earth either way

Ok Salt it is. As an aside I read that Melvin Cook (creationist) is disagreeing with h*vind (creationist) on the validity of salt in the ocean claim.

However, I think I found the corresponding (1990 The sea's missing salt: A dilemma for evolutionists. Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, Pittsburgh, 2: 17-33) article in talk origins LINK(please take a look and see if it correct).

Basically the response is, Austin and Humphreys failed to account for all the mechanisms of salt removal. With two external references:a. LINK Morton, Glenn R., 1996. Salt in the sea b. Burton, J. D. and D. Wright, 1981. Sea water and its evolution. In: The Evolving Earth, ed. L. R. M. Cocks. London: British Museum, 89-101.

A couple of questions: a. Have Austin and Humphreys responded in any way to the criticisms of their work?b. Did Austin and Humphreys submit their article for peer review, as from the Talk origins site it appears that it was only presented at the Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Creationism, Pittsburgh . If submitted for peer review there should be a paper trail in scientific circles where the ideas are discussed in detail.

Basically the response is, Austin and Humphreys failed to account for all the mechanisms of salt removal.

I found this in the response from Glenn Morton "I will examine the salt balance of the Miocene epoch. I do this becauseit is long enough for an imbalance to be found, I have the data for thisepoch and it will push your 62 Myr age of the oceans back to 80 Myr..."If Austin and Humphreys are wrong and Morton is right the age of ocean is only pushed back approximately 20 myr. The problem is still present, evolution would require much more than 80 myr.

I have been doing a lot of my own research on the topic I just wanted to hear what other young earthers had to say about it. What exactly are you interested in that is related to a young earth?

As I said, I'm not interested in anything that talkorigins has to say. I think Fred's "evo-babbler" alert pretty much sums it up.

1) And the number one sure sign Ã¢â‚¬â€œ cites articles from the Talk.Origins repository, where you will be fortunate to find 1 scholarly article out of every 50. If done just once, it still registers in at an impressive 80% accuracy! If they list more than one reference to Talk.Origins in the same post, you have a dead-ringer at 99.98% probability!

"I will examine the salt balance of the Miocene epoch. I do this becauseit is long enough for an imbalance to be found, I have the data for thisepoch and it will push your 62 Myr age of the oceans back to 80 Myr..."

is contained in the link I posted previously in an exchange on the 8 Apr 96 LINK, part of the quote refers to a revise level of salt by Austin and Humphreys by letter, of

Ã¢â‚¬Å“However, I was pleased to see Steve (in his letter of May 10th) allow that the world-wide resource of sodium was 1.47 x 10^19 kg in rock salt. This is a much more reasonable figure and much larger than the value cited in your paper of 4.4 x 10^18 kg. (Austin and Humphreys 1990, p. 25.)Ã¢â‚¬Â

the final part to the excange that I can find is

Since the Miocene was a period of balance, you should add 17.5 million years to your 62 million year age calculated on page 27 of your article. This would make an age of nearly 80 million years. A look at any paleogeographic map from 80 million years ago, will show, as you are well aware Steve, that the oceans covered a much larger proportion of the earth at that time. With less land area, the influxes from rivers and groundwater of the continents would be significantly reduced. A reduction of nearly 50% in the inputs would almost balance the sodium equations even in your table. This would mean that large parts of the Cretaceous and Jurassic eras would also be in balance as far as sodium is concerned.

Two things stick out:

A. Austin and Humphreys did revise their inisial calculations, bringing the total to something more reasonable, especially when added to the other areas not addressed in the same link.B. Austin and Humphreys, 60/80Mya figure hardly supports YEC, with a figure like that, the first thing I would be looking at is "have I covered all the bases" because it lies between evolution and creation and supports neither.

Austin and Humphreys did revise their inisial calculations, bringing the total to something more reasonable, especially when added to the other areas not addressed in the same link.

Sounds like a good science experiment to me. I also found the same info at the AIG website. Sorry for the confusion.

Austin and Humphreys, 60/80Mya figure hardly supports YEC, with a figure like that, the first thing I would be looking at is "have I covered all the bases" because it lies between evolution and creation and supports neither.

ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s important to stress that this is not the actual age, but a maximum age. That is, this evidence is consistent with any age up to 80 million years, including the biblical age of about 6,000 years. The point is not to directly prove a young earth but, to point out that there are certain limits in place that do not allow for billions of years. 6,000 years fits fine in that timespan but the problem becomes bigger for evolution. The ocean obviously has to be much older and many sea creatures have been dated older than 80 million years.

Hello,I found one argument I found to be questionable. Dave Matson attacks the saltiness of the oceans being a proof for a young earth he says: "Dr. h*vind is assuming that salt cannot be removed from the oceans. The more sophisticated creationists, such as Melvin Cook, know better than to make that assumption. Here's what Cook had to say" Then heÃ‚Â cites [Cook, 1966, p.73] Who says this cannot be used to prove the age of the earth either way.

"Thus, salt is being removed from the oceans as quickly as it is being added by the world's rivers. Consequently, no age can be calculated, save a minimum age based upon an assumption of initial salt content. There is no comfort here for the young-earth creationist."

Is it being removed as quickly as it is being added? Here is what AIG had to say:"However, the rate of all of this sodium output is far less than the input. Austin and Humphreys calculated that about 122 million tonnes of sodium leaves the sea every year. The maximum possible rate in the past, even if the most generous assumptions are granted to evolutionists, is 206 million tonnes/year."

"Granting the most generous assumptions to evolutionists, Austin and Humphreys calculated that the ocean must be less than 62 million years old. ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s important to stress that this is not the actual age, but a maximum age. That is, this evidence is consistent with any age up to 62 million years, including the biblical age of about 6,000 years.

The Austin and Humphreys calculation assumes the lowest plausible input rates and fastest plausible output rates. Another assumption is that there was no dissolved salt to start with. If we assume more realistic conditions in the past, the calculated maximum age is much less."AIG

If the rivers, which are much smaller than the oceans, were removing salts as much as what cook says. They would be so salty, everything in them would die. But most rivers have a brackish point, and a fresh water point, as they go more inland. Which proves that the salt from the ocean is not flowing into our rivers. Because the size difference would flood the rivers with salt.

Example:

Brackish=transition point of salt water to fresh water (not sure of the spelling of the word).

Ocean-------mouth of river---------brackish point-----------fresh water point.Moving more inland ----------->

So for the river to to take on this all this salt, but not affect it more inland, would mean the salt gets dumped at the mouth of the river for some reason. Which would also men that the bottom of the river, at the mouth, would be nearly pure salt. And, it would have to be shown why the salt separates from the water at the mouth of the river.

None of this "River eating the sea salt" idea can be proven. And I have seen no evidence either.

Here's how it would have to look:

Ocean salt-------Mouth of river=salt falling to river bottom------brackish------fresh water.Moving more inland ---------->

Added: Opps, I miss read the meaning. Well anyway, it makes a point, case anyone wants to try and say that the river removes the salt.

The sea salt issue is only an issue if it is assumed that nog salt is removed from the oceans. This is not the case.

It has been shown that huge quantities of salt are removed from the sea along tectonically active plate boundaries, like mid-ocean ridges. Along these ridges, sea water is 'sucked up' during the formation of new ocean floor. This ocean floor, basalt, contains a mineral called K-feldspar. This feldspar reacts with the ocean water in a process called albitization. This basically means that sodium from the ocean water reacts with feldspar to form albite. Similar removal mechanisms exist for other ions (like SO4(2-) that gets airborne).
The other large removal mechanism is the formation of so-called evaporites. Evaporites form during a period in which the influx of seawater is not constant in a region, allowing evaporation of a large part of the water, raising the salinity of the water untill the sodium exsolves. Evaporite formations can become up to several kilometers thick.

By the way, there is no global evaporite formation, as one would expect after a global flood followed by evaporation of the flood water. Furthermore, the evaporites are found in stratigraphically very different levels.

ItÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s important to stress that this is not the actual age, but a maximum age. That is, this evidence is consistent with any age up to 80 million years, including the biblical age of about 6,000 years.

You are correct, had Austin and Humphreys calculations been accurate a figure giving 62M years, would be a problem for an old earth. There would then be an additional method of confirmation because this implies that the salinity of the oceans should still be increasing at that rate. This could be measured today. I.e.

The ocean obviously has to be much older and many sea creatures have been dated older than 80 million years.

An excellent example of how evolution (or more accurately Ã¢â‚¬Ëœold earthÃ¢â‚¬â„¢) can be falsified. Indeed it was a good science experiment.

edit/P.S. returning to the topic in your first post, you stated

re> Talk Origins "news group" <snip> I suspect the article is full of untruths

Well admittedly the sample size is small (one) but ocean salinity seems to me to have been handled accurately, yes?

Qualifier - the Ã¢â‚¬ËœTalk Origins news groupÃ¢â‚¬â„¢ is not the source, it is a blunt (ok sometimes very rude) and rather unfriendly forum. I would be interested in your opinion on the Talk Origins archive.

Well admittedly the sample size is small (one) but ocean salinity seems to me to have been handled accurately, yes?

I suppose the data has been handled accurately but, the root of the issue is never solved. The point is to put a limit on the age of the earth. Whether that be 62 or 80 million is not the issue. The numbers have been adjusted but the problem remains.